By madamemao, May 25 2020 04:29AM

We have today launched our new Chinese propaganda poster website, on which we feature our collection past and present.

Intended as a resource for research and appreciation of this varied and fascinating art form, the site shows posters that we have, or that have passed through our hands, over the last 20 years. Sadly, we were not so efficient at taking useable photographs back in the day, so we don't have a photograph of every poster we have owned, but there are still quite a lot to share with you.

We have included the information we have in our records about the place, date and year of publication, and have also given our own translation of the slogan. We don't guarantee the accuracy of these translations, but we do our best to translate the meaning and have given the original Chinese slogan too. So if the translation is essential to you in your research, you can have the slogans professionally translated. There is also some information on this site about the artists, and the heroes and models featured in the propaganda of the period.

Please let us know if you have any comments about the site, positive or constructively negative, and we will make all necessary adjustments. The site is brand new, so we anticipate doing some editing work over the forthcoming weeks, and we will add new posters from time to time. Check back anytime to see improvements!

By madamemao, Nov 25 2019 04:04AM

In the Mao Period enamel was ubiquitous. The enamel cup bore Mao slogans or politically referencing images, or simply the name of your work unit with perhaps your worker number so you could use your own cup. Enamel basins were in everybody's home for washing faces and clothes and enamel spoons served out rice and congee. Shanghai and Pudong was home to many enamelware factories and the production process was neither simple nor quick, but required skill, patience and artistic content. All of those factories have been replaced, making enamelware a dying product. Madame Mao's Dowry made it's own line of cups and trays, some of which found their way to the shelves of the British Museum and the V&A in London as examples of Chinese Design.

This Christmas we bring you, instead, a collection of Mao Period and Republican Period enamelware, original, used and fascinating. On their face these pieces trace a history of design that is broad and deep, incorporating many styles and influences from bird anf flower paintings to modernism to propaganda.